Shine a Light on America's Afghan-Iraqi Rathole

I don't know what else to call a 2009 USAID agricultural project that started as a $60 million initiative to distribute vouchers for wheat seed and fertilizer in the north -- generous enough -- and ended up, "under pressure to inject $1 million each day into a dozen or so key terrain districts," dumping $360 million into the south and east not just for seeds and fertilizer but also "cash-for-work" -- hmm -- and something dubiously called "community development."

Or how about the U.S. mission to train and equip Afghan National Security Forces at a cost to American taxpayers of $6.4 billion a year? "Such costs far exceed what the government of Afghanistan can sustain," the commission determined, "so it is unclear how those costs will be funded in the future."

Uh-oh.

"Meanwhile," the report continues, "$11 billion of facilities constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for (Afghan National Security Forces) are 'at risk.'"

Needless to say, $11 billion worth of facilities is a terrible thing to waste.

Then there's a category called "Diversion of U.S. Funds" -- as in diversion of funds to the enemy. No official estimate here, the commission reports; it's anyone's guess. While the opium trade is considered to be the primary funding for the jihadists, guess who's next on the list?

You are. "During a March 2011 trip to Afghanistan, experts told the commission that extortion of funds from U.S construction projects and transportation contracts is the insurgents' second-largest funding source."

This record must be open to citizens, scholars and journalists -- not to mention the Justice Department fraud squad -- ASAP. Otherwise, the bucks won't stop anywhere, ever.

Diana West is the author of American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character (St. Martin's Press, 2013), and The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization (St. Martin's Press, 2007).